Camp Fire
by JMK758
Summary: A week after 'The Best Revenge is Revenge', Eric and Nell unwind with friends at the beach, but forget to expect the unexpected.
1. A Day at the Beach

I was watching some NCIS:LA Chats with Reneé Felice Smith and Barrett Foa and decided to incorporate the information given there into my stories, both 'The Best Revenge is Revenge' which concluded last week in 'Enkiss Time', and this one.  
A question the actors were asked was what kind of story would they like to see on NCIS:LA. Well, I'm not going to do exactly as they wished, but I hope they'd be pleased with my take on the idea for when Nell and Eric get away from Ops for the weekend and... but that would be telling.  
NCIS:LA is owned by Belisarius Productions and created by Shane Brennan. The usual Legal Disclaimers about not making money and not taking any character or situation that's not mine apply.  
Canonically this story takes place on the third Saturday of August, eight days after 'The Best Revenge is Revenge'. Eric tries to give Nell a pleasant day off following the events of that Mystery and the cases that followed it. In terms of the televised series, it would occur in the hiatus following the 7th Season.  
You can find all my stories listed in order in my Profile.  
Rated T or NCis-17  
Please Review.

Camp Fire  
by JMK758  
Chapter One  
A Day at the Beach

Eric Beal and Nell Jones pull their backpacks from John's Minivan, hoist them to their shoulders and turn toward the beach at the bottom of the steep incline. The thermometer this Saturday morning has already topped 80 back in LA but up here in this obscure section of Echo Mountain, so obscure it's ignored by every tourist site on the web, that 80 is the projected high for this afternoon.

Other sections of these hills offer spectacular views, this one does not. What it does offer is an off-road bungalow perhaps abandoned so long ago that no one in even the nearest town remembers it's here.

Eric holds her hand to guide her safely through the tangles of the incline which, fortunately, stroke her bare legs rather than bite with brambles. His solicitous concern isn't necessary, she feels perfectly capable of traversing the treacherous hill by herself but she has no intention of saying that to him.

It's been a week since they last were apart. Unable to endure the isolation of her apartment after the nightmare of being framed for a murder she'd so dearly wanted to commit, she's used it this week only as a place to switch out clothing while she and he have spent the time in the seclusion of his. They'd used the isolation to get to know each other so much better than they had in the years in which they've worked side by side, inches apart in Ops.

In efforts to support her in the aftermath of an horrendous ordeal, he's also made quite certain - all in the interest of comforting and helping her, of course - that they very frequently weren't even inches apart.

She cannot say when she's experienced a more comforting week.

He'd made her a promise last Friday. 'Nell Jones,' he'd said, 'I am not letting go.' Well this week, virtually from the moments when they'd left work each day until they'd returned on the following mornings, he's been a man of his word.

x

The hill is high enough to make a satisfying difference in the heat that wraps and blankets - and abuses - the city, but this spot is virtually unknown. Behind the isolated house the steep incline behind it cannot be seen from the road. You have to park in the driveway of the long abandoned bungalow and look down behind it to find anything, making the small beach a particular lure for those who know of it.

No one knows when the owners of the house have been here last but the rough path down the incline is already heavily obscured, the grass between hill and sand gone wild and plants have crept upward through the sand in irregular patches. But when they break from the woods the sand at the end of the untended long grass is smooth and the natural lake, the opposite shore a few hundred feet away, is placid and promises cool comfort.

Pete 'Hedley' Henderson (which gave them a brief bad moment before they got the proper pronunciation) and Mary Falcone have already staked out their spots on the sand midway between the gently lapping waves and the encroaching plants. Pete spreads a large blanket as Mary pulls her overlarge Lakers tee shirt out from her shorts and over her head to reveal a pink bikini top which has less material than it needs. Facing the beach, she opens her shorts and bends low before Pete to push them to her ankles and reveal the matched set and substantially more.

"Earth to Eric," Nell says as they walk the untended grass, the tops of which brush her knees, to the sand.

Eric snaps back with a guilty start, turns so-innocent eyes down to her. "I wasn't looking."

"Yes, sir," she agrees with a smile. She doesn't want him to stop looking, for when a man does it's time to fit him for a long box and order lilies, but she's confident that she can keep him looking in the right direction.

x

To the right of the couple, John LeFauche and Jamie L'Enfant prepare the grill and unpack the food. Jamie has already dispensed with her excess coverings, the white bikini proving her name misleading and leaving Nell, still wearing her red shorts and the pink classic Scarlet Witch tee shirt bought months ago in DC, feeling like the odd woman out. Glancing high up at Eric's eyes (her head comes up to his chest but she's always maintained that 'good things come' and so forth) she considers a strategically timed unveiling - when she decides she wants his attention. Until then, she'll let the other women serve as warm-up while Wanda casts her hex.

x

Certainly John isn't failing to take in the unveiled sights. She admires his daring if not his caution, for his attention on Mary very nearly exceeds his lock on Jamie. She'd caution him but decides that this is not her issue. He's a big boy, they're certainly big girls, and if he wants to live dangerously she intends only to stay out of shrapnel range.

Setting their backpacks down at the apex of a triangle between but east of the couples, she kneels down, the sand cupping her bare knees, and sorts through her pack while Eric pulls out and flings open the large blanket. That a northerly breeze hits at that moment to catch the material and use it to recover Jamie is a cosmic coincidence that sparks a bit of good natured chuckling, Eric's stammering apology and Nell's smile that's completely misread by the other couples.

x

The Techs owe this day to John and Jamie having invited Peter and Mary, and Peter had invited Eric who'd invited Nell. The weather is excellent; one must search for a cloud beyond the distant hills west of the lake while moderate breezes rustle the trees that encroach upon the north and south sides of the small beach. The lake is less than an irregular mile around, too small to be an attraction, and at the end of the tall grass behind them the ground climbs some sixty feet. Perched on the edge above them, the house has seen better decades and is deeply into its declining years.

Perhaps the former occupants of that house had considered this to be a private beach. It's small enough for a family and the white house is easily passed on the road without more than a glance. The sandy area is no more than sixty feet wide before it's absorbed by the encroaching tree lines on the north and south which touch the water on either side, and the grass that reaches to the hill is grown out but no wider.

A radio is pulled out, the BBQ started and the three couples settle in on adjacent blankets, conversation light and casual. Nell and Eric placed their blanket about three feet closer to the hill and house for the courtesy that no one is blocked from easy conversing. The other couples, of course, are far better acquainted and discretion prevents the Agents from discussing NCIS so they must feel their way into the matrix, Eric's connection to Pete being their only link. Fortunately the setting is not just tranquil, it inspires comfort.

x

In fact Nell decides after twenty minutes of Eric's eyes snatching glimpses of the other women that it has been long enough for her companion's warm up, so she stands and, a foot from Eric and between him and Jamie, she undoes the button on her shorts. She opens and wiggles them off her hips, pushes the material off and down her legs and onto the blanket. When she straightens again Eric's eyes are suitably locked in place.

Seeing those eyes, she's reminded of those moments almost two months ago when she'd stood on the ladder in Ops while wearing that so short scarlet dress. He'd been holding said ladder and she'd stood one rung quite too high.

The trip to New York for the Independence Day Holiday had taught him a lot about women in general and her in particular, and ever since he's been a conscientious and dedicated student. This week he's been quite happy to demonstrate everything he's learned and is well on his way to graduating Some Come Loud.

Now, standing before him, the Scarlet Witch tee shirt which she'd bought at DC's Comic Book Convention in May hangs, as she'd very carefully checked in the mirror this morning, precisely three quarters of an inch long of offering a peek at her leopard skin bikini bottom, and when she kneels down before him and sits back on her ankles, the pink material rests on her thighs an inch and a half longer than she knows he wants it to be.

x

Since they'd grown intimate in July, finally taking their relationship out of Ops, she hasn't had to concern herself with such things as bikini waxes, not when Eric has been so willing to help her keep smooth, a suggestion of his she'd found both reasonable and delightful.

He'd talked her into the experiment, promising that the removal of her intimate fur (it had all started with talk of her fennic fox persona from her Califur days) would make her feel more sensitive, as the touch of flesh normally shielded would make her feel so good.

That first time he'd laid her on the hotel's Queen bed ( _again_ but this time differently) with her legs yet again spread for him. The trimming of her onto the spread towel, first with scissors, had been exciting, both for the novelty and his intimate closeness. Then came the haircutting device he'd just 'happened' to have with him - yeah, right, a spur of the moment suggestion - and the vibrations as he worked ever so slowly, closer and closer… she'd had to make him stop for a time when those vibrations had undone her.

Next, after she'd recovered, had come the hot lather and he'd completely abandoned the pretense of the spontaneity. He'd covered her everywhere – _every_ where - and the heated cream had made her tingle. It felt so very good - and then she'd looked down the length of her body and the straight razor's gleaming steel glinted in the sunbeam.

Nervousness leaped past apprehension straight into fear iced with terror as he brought the sharp device down and she'd started an unslowing mantra of how much she trusted him while her heart slammed against her ribs and her panting breath dried her throat. When the metal touched her skin she'd nearly leaped out of it.

'I trust him he won't hurt me I trust him he loves me he won't cut me I trust him hewonthurtme Itrusthimhewon'tcutme Itrusthimhewon'thurtme Itrusthimhewon'tcutmehewon'tcutmehewon'tcutme!'

She'd kept it up as, half inch by half inch, he so gently and carefully sliced every bit of fur from her, ironic after she'd confessed her furry fandom, and she started to realize how the fear itself was exciting her, making her so sensitive and moist that it was so hard to keep still. Fear vied with lust to make her want to move her hips, move herself to his touches when she'd dared not move a single muscle.

The fear, the terror, the trust, the sensations, the _thrill_ , the total intimacy of him for so long down there, manipulating her, controlling her, being so gentle, so cautious in such intimate terror that it had consumed her and before she knew it he was gently rubbing her with the fluffy towel.

She'd looked down in time to see him duck his head and his tongue–!

She'd shrieked until she was breathless and lost herself in what his mouth, his tongue, his fingers were doing to her.

When he'd moved above her body, when she tasted herself on his lips, when she'd felt him targeting her and even his misses, so intense as she'd never felt before, drove her mad until he'd invaded her. She felt him against her lips, his hair alone touching her without her own to block it and the sensitive –

She breaks the thought, holds her breath, for if she thought about it for one more _second_ –!

x

Since then, they've made it a point, at least twice a week, to make certain he keeps her totally smooth, totally ready. She knows it's more often than she needs but it's just so much fun. And he was right, the sensations never slackened in their intensity. Whether she wore panties, thong or nothing - and the first time he'd introduced her to a thong with a strand crotch of _pearls_ she'd nearly lost her mind over that day. He was ever in her mind, and knowing, even during innocent briefings, she surrounded by a forest of testosterone rather than chlorophyll, that she and Eric were the only ones who know that under dress or skirt or whatever that she's got on that she's–.

Oh, God, it's been a good two months!

x

But as intimate as they've been, when they're at work they can show none of their relation, even when sitting beside him and thoughts like 'available' invaded her mind. If ever he were to reach over to her, if ever he were to dare to take the chance at work, she would be lost.

They'd done it last night, completely unnecessary (though he did remind her, oh how subtly, that she'd be wearing this bikini - yeah, right) but the tingling of that hot cream prepares her to enjoy more, the sensation of the razor sliding over her intimate flesh he alone gets to enjoy, just undoes her. And his tongue, his lips, his mouth and invading fingers – though the tingling hot cream is always gone before she gets to enjoy his tongue, she's not sure if that cream's flavored or if he just likes hers.

x

She has, however, while on the job, come to truly enjoy every opportunity to get him back for making these naughty thoughts so high in her mind by Teasing him. She does it, quite without mercy, in the safety of Ops, sometimes when the mood hits her and it's with no implication of fairness, but it has been both liberating and empowering after last week's torments as well as having done wonders for her libido and her general outlook on life.

With agents coming and going without warning, she loves leaving him completely helpless. Even were he to dare to act, security cameras catch everything, yet not once have they protected her from after-hours revenge when he settles her score.

Most memorable was that first time, the Friday before the July 4th holiday when they were in Ops and she in that stunning red mini-dress she didn't quite wear, a vast change from her normal image. On the whole, however, she didn't tease before that day but they've worked together for years and she was in a mood to make up for all of that supposedly lost time in one day.

And now, unless she's completely misread their hosts and the plans of the day, she's going to get in plenty of opportunities to tease him quite mercilessly, all in the interest of warm-up.

And if it turns out that she _has_ misread the solitude and the temperature and the blankets and the bikinis, if it's not the innocent afternoon she believes... well, it _is_ solitude and blankets and bikinis and...

Until then, she'll enjoy being a merciless tease, confident that she'll especially enjoy his settling the score tonight.

Or this afternoon.

x

In the meantime, she feels his eyes pet where he'd devoted so much time, energy and effort to last night. She thinks he'd duck his head if he dared but is probably thinking no one else notices the show she's giving him so he won't dare to jeopardize it.

"So, Eric, like the view?" she says distinctly enough for all five to hear.

"Ohhh, yessssss," he sighs in a long whisper.

'Noticing' the direction of his gaze, she reaches down and uses her finger on his jaw to turn his head left. "The _view_?" Before them the short beach, placid water and expanse of trees on the west shore ascending into the hills are a most picturesque sight.

"Yes. Yes, the view. The view. Very nice... I guess."

She catches the other women's looks and matches their smiles, knowing they only _think_ they know what's going on.

She considers having mercy on her best friend, but decides there's plenty of time for that later – when he's gone from surreptitious peeks at the tiny bikinied Mary and Jamie and has cast enough longing glances at – or through – her Scarlet Witch tee shirt.

They say too many exposures to x-rays can be dangerous, but too much other exposure can also be jading.

Just enough to keep him interested, longing and trying, however...

xx

After a late breakfast of hot dogs, hamburgers, sodas, chips, cole slaw, macaroni and potato salads and similar unhealthy repasts (Hetty would have a conniption) they decide to go into the water.

When the other couples, already long changed, precede them, Nell kneels up before Eric and says "I think I'd like to get a bit of sun," and tugs the tee shirt over her head and off.

As she kneels a foot before him and finger-brushes her short auburn locks back into place, she feels Eric's eyes pet her. The leopard spot bikini not only hints broadly at an animal attraction but the cups support her breasts to their best advantage as they dip daringly low. The leopard bottom hides sufficiently (thank goodness she let him talk her into another trimming) yet ties with two strings into bows high on her hips, just enough to hint at the danger she faces from an accidental tug.

Ignoring Eric's intense stare she repositions the bra, low enough to put her areola at risk, into place but then checks her shoulders. "I don't know," she confesses.

"Nnn – know what?" he manages to say five seconds late. She can watch his blood pressure build in his face, unusual because when she glances down the length of his reclining body she can swear most of his blood is going elsewhere.

She inspects the garment with mounting criticism. "Well, with this top the shoulder straps detach, so I can get a good tan, see?" She peels the upper corner aside, some of the cup moves away and she fancies she can see his blood pressure spike thirty more points and hear his pounding heart through his bare chest. "But since it leaves only the wraparound, and it's so low, there's a good chance it'll fall off _again_." She releases the material and looks to him. "Do you think I should risk it?"

Behind his glasses his eyes are so wide she thinks it must hurt.

x

"Eric?" If his eyes could come up to her neck she wonders if the orbs would break with the effort. "Eric?"

"Hnnn ahhh nungh."

"You're right. Always time to decide later. If I go in the water without the straps it'll definitely fall off and float away."

"Hnn nughh."

She stands up, making sure the sun is before her and that Eric, still seated, has a well lit perspective as she inspects the ties at each hip, feeling his eyes ascend her body. "Darn it."

"Whahat's rong?"

"Darn ties. They slip, and they're too short for me to really feel secure. If I sit down wrong they're just going to fly apart, and if they get wet they'll slip apart. The bottom will fall right off me and I'll never find it again."

She looks down to his large eyes. "What do you think?"

"Ahhhhh... anh... abba..."

"Do you think I should put the shorts back on?"

"Nnggggaabbbbblll!"

"You're right," she says, turns and walks to the beach, giving the bikini bottom an extra wiggle.

"Right about what?" Three seconds too late he realizes she's walked half way across the sand and is heading to the water where the other four frolic.

Stopping near the edge of the water, she reaches behind herself, up high on each side and detaches the buttons, then opens the ones up front, drops the thin bands on the sand and steps into the water.

It's at this point that the rest of the world impinges upon Eric and he realizes he's alone.

"Hey, _wait for me_!" he scrambles to his feet so quickly he nearly falls.

x

Nell, facing away but head turned enough to see him in the corner of her eye, smiles as she watches him stumble as he rushes off the blanket. Part of her regrets deceiving her friend, for the suit is quite secure, but that regretful part is very small indeed.

Then again maybe, if he's a good boy, she'll let him find out if the suit _could_ float away. Or tonight she'll give him a Swedish massage - he always loves those - and if he's a _really_ good boy she'll let him do a little tugging.

.

Author's Note: For details of the red dress and ladder and what led up to that memorable Independence Day vacation, see my story 'Data'.


	2. The Battle is Joined

Chapter Two  
The Battle is Joined

Eric stops just short of the gently lapping water. He looks torn and Nell immediately discerns his problem. She stands up from the crouch that had been acclimating her to the cool water and walks to him, water pouring down her body.

"You're going to lose those glasses."

"Tell me about it," he says, frustration in every syllable.

She can read him so well, a consequence of their untold hours seated next to each other, and to more now. He wants to enjoy the water with them, and particularly wants to see her – the way his eyes pet her wet body with moist rivulets flowing down her is more than enough to shout his thoughts – but without the glasses his clear distant vision is limited to about ten feet out..

She reaches up and pulls his glasses off. "Wait here."

"I can't go far."

He's not blind, she knows, and can navigate well without them; it's just the clarity he lacks, so as she walks back to their blanket she gives him an extra wiggle of her leopard spot string before she walks out of focus. She looks back and sees him straining for clarity.

'If you're good, my friend,' she promises in secret.

x

She returns and takes his hand, smiles when she sees he's trying to be a good boy but his eyes keep getting tugged downward as though she has magnets in her unsupported cups.

'Maybe they are,' she decides. 'Man-gnets.'

She escorts him into the water, cooler than the air, quite aware that he doesn't need the help even if he is guided by his right hand on her right hip.

x

The play is fun; teasing and splashing, some irreverent chases and overdone falls, the merriment suitable to a Three Stooges short.

"Hey," Mary says, "what about a game?"

"Of what?" Jamie asks, looking doubtful.

"Water wrestling," she says, eyes to Pete.

"I'm game," he says.

"Anything to get her up on your shoulders," Jamie says. "But what the hell?"

Pete takes a few steps into deeper water, turns and holds his hands outward. The water reaches his pectorals "No further than this."

The five come out almost to the border he's marked and Nell flashes him a smile. As the smallest of the women, that depth will reach to her neck. While it's an easy swim in water that they'll make the most disturbance in, she appreciates the courtesy.

The men crouch down and the women climb upon their shoulders so that, when raised, they are lifted to their lower legs or, in Nell's case on her tall partner, just above her ankles. She does notice that John, with Jamie positioned so invitingly behind his neck, nevertheless gives more attention to Mary than she thinks wise. But she keeps quiet; it's not her relationship – though if Eric were to stare with this much intensity at the nearly nude women - okay, he'd stared but discreetly - she'd make it very plain to him that he was flirting with more than a nearly naked woman.

x

John, Pete and Eric each take a step back to the points of an imaginary triangle and Nell settles herself further forward behind Eric's neck, the while thinking that if she were turned facing him from the front he would enjoy the game even more.

Come to that, so would she.

She adjusts the cups of her strapless leopard spot top, regretting having given in to the temptation to tease, but she can't return to the sand for the straps now as John yells "GO!" and the battle is joined.

x

As a battle it's more pushing, pulling and a great deal of splashing. To these are added occasional attempts at Judo moves by the women that, in Jamie and John's case, are counter-productive as an effort to push Mary off balance to the side does so to them instead and Jamie goes under for the first point.

Nell and Mary combat as Jamie climbs again on John's shoulders and they reenter the giggling, screaming fray. A moment later Jamie succeeds in twisting Mary around and she and Pete fall sideways, costing them their first of five dunks.

The battle will progress until either time is called or two women have gone under for a fifth time, at which point the survivor will be declared the winner.

Nell, with her extensive hand-to-hand combat training, though she'll tout none of that out - she's not fighting SEALs - is confident of a win. The other two girls are again pointed once each to Nell's none until, in a display of cooperative battle technique, each grabs one of her legs and lifts.

Nell barely cuts the scream off and gasps before she goes under.

But when she comes up she feels her fast resurfacing has left something behind and must spin about to make repairs before facing them again and climbing back onto Eric to enjoy the fray. In the meantime, Jamie splashes down for her third time.

x

The war is a screaming, laughing, boisterous mêlée for several minutes when, with Jamie counted out but still in a battle she's excluded from winning, Mary and Nell each have four losses when Mary switches from pushing Nell backward, Eric losing ground, to a hard pull across and Nell, as she goes face first into the water for her fifth time, must quickly spread her legs lest she risk drowning Eric.

Mary announces that she'll claim her trophy tonight.

x

No one has any particular desire to return to the beach so as the group breaks apart to separate or paired swimmers. Nell swims several yards outward to the west but Eric, who has had enough exercise – fun though it had been – hops up to enjoy a relaxing float.

The vacation lasts for a minute. "Eric?" he hears from his right and turns his head to look northward along the top of the water. Nell's head, looking more like an oval under her dark thatch of short wet auburn hair, bobs over twenty feet away, the limit of his range to see even this much. The others are southward of him but when he glances back they pay him no mind, intent upon their own pleasures. "Would you come here for a moment?"

Never one to refuse, he takes an easy swim and as he lands before her he realizes she's standing with the water brushing the tops of her bare shoulders. He tries not to think of how her breasts float in the leopard cups or to wonder at their weight if he were to (dare to) test. The water, which comes to his lower chest, is only clear enough for him to see to the top of her ribs before the view wavers in a way that has nothing to do with his lack of glasses.

"I want to give you something."

"Give me?"

"It's not a present, I just want you to hold it for a while so you'll remember me."

"Iiiiiiiiii." This is odd. Did she find something under the water? "Guess so?"

She raises her tightly clenched hand, palm down, from the water but keeps it close to the bobbing surface. "Now I'm not giving you this, I want it back."

"Ohhhhhhh… kay?"

He puts out his hand under hers, back of his hand teased by wet touches and she opens hers.

x

The tightly rolled leopard spot cloth loosens in his hand and four long strings fall from it into the water and take his tongue and most of his brain with them.

He stares at the small garment, unrolls it as his pulse slams in his ears.

"Keep that safe for me?"

"Hammmmm hamma…." He tries to look past his shaking hand, can hear little over the bass drum of his heart, but his vision is still stopped above her waist. She Cannot-!

"You're a dear." She turns, kicks off and jackknives under the water, swims out – but for One Tantalizing Instant-!

x

He stands on the invisible ground, holding the garment in his hand and then, as her head and shoulders break the surface northward ten yards away, a truly out-of-focus image, he stares at her.

He knows that, sometime in prehistory, he knew how to talk, how to form coherent sentences, could actually hold his own around women, but that was in the days before he met Nell Jones.

He looks about. The others are distant and pay him no mind. He dips the garment under the water and rolls it as quickly as he can. But there's nothing he can do with it short of tucking it into the waistband of his own suit and praying that it won't fall out.

If he loses it she is truly going to be pissed.

He looks out, finds her further west in deeper water and sees her disappear again below the waves. He looks again to the others, they neither know nor would care that she's out there bottomless - _please_ _don_ 't _take_ _off_ _the_ _top_ \- but he knows.

Eric Beale prides himself that he's cool under pressure, particularly when at his station. He hasn't broken. Ever. He hasn't panicked. Ever. He hasn't screamed - not like he does when a hand clutches high up his inner thigh.


	3. The House

Chapter Three  
The House

Nell restored her bikini before coming out of the water, feeling utterly relaxed. Well away from the others, she's so enjoyed floating in his one arm, weightless and held close, kissing for so long on his level and not having to reach, their kisses growing in passion, she open to the invasion of his other hand, her moans and cries lost, muffled in his open mouth as their tongues dueled.

But she's not so sure about that last scream.

x

When they'd come in she'd checked but no one seemed to notice, though she suspects she wasn't the only one enjoying the pleasures of being really extra wet.

It wasn't too easy to tie her leopard spot bottom on her hips after that, especially when, water still lapping her chin, his quick hand motion had moved her unsupported top down and he'd been extra bad, proving that even though she was sated he still had a way to go and was most happy to keep bringing her along.

She supposes it's fair payback for that grab earlier, not just his thigh but a really unfair reach up into the space before swimming off out of reach. She'd played hard to get under the water for quite some time before she did get got, with such fantastic results as to leave her quite happy for the rest of the day. She is now a definite fan of 'wet and weightless'.

xx

The rest of this day has passed quickly, picnic number two came and went, and more times swimming and other activities wound them up on the blankets, listening to and influenced by romantic songs on the radio - there'd been a lot of kissing and private more - and resting up for the trip home.

Their last excitement had been an hour ago, a long Battle of the Sexes game of Touch Football in which there were entirely too many fouls because of what was touched. Since each player could legally touch only one other counterpart player, fouls were frequent and rampant, lawful scores were difficult to count and the game was more nonsense than attempts to score legitimate points.

The illegitimate points will be tallied later.

x

The sun, even in the extended days of the latter half of August, is perched upon the distant western hills and darkness will fall with impressive rapidity once it falls behind those hills.

For now the six, still dressed in now dry bathing suits, debate the thought of packing and going home vs. another day without responsibility. A campfire upon the beach will keep them warm, not that anyone anticipates a need.

But as the hills' shadows settle the non-debate by their approach across the small lake John is the first to ascend the hill while the five set to the serious business of breaking camp.

Though Peter and Eric dress for the trip home none of the women seem inclined to do so and neither man minds.

But John is gone for a considerable time, leading to much speculation about avoiding the work until the last of the supplies are stowed when the sound of breaking twigs pulls attention to the overgrown hill. Jamie is the first to turn. "Nice of you to sho–."

It's not John.

x

The man stands nearly six feet in Cowboy boots, jeans, black leather vest over tee shirt and white plastic mask under black wool cap.

It was the sword dripping blood onto the grass that silenced Jamie an instant before raising screams from both women.

Eric, keeping his lips as still as he can, says low to Nell "Are you packing?"

" _No_."

But as the masked man approaches across the grass Pete, ignoring the sword and Mary's pleas, steps forward to intercept him. "Very funny, John, but Halloween–."

Jamie and Mary's shrieks clear the trees of birds in a loud rush as the man thrusts with horrific force and the sword's bloody tip emerges from Pete's back.

x

The shrieking women back away and Pete falls backward, collapsing off the sword. Eric bends, scoops a double handful of sand and flings it upward, aiming for the white mask, sure at least some grains will make it through the eyeholes and disorient this man.

Mary and Jamie break, one runs on either side of the man as he flails at them with his sword. They race across the grass.

"HEY!" Eric cries, hoping to distract their attacker even as he glances back to Nell. He grabs another double handful of sand and flings it, the cloud covering the man.

Nell is beside him. "Run!"

The man flails wildly with the sword but they keep clear of his range, run across the grass and scramble up the hill.

x

When they burst out of the trees and run for the van parked in the driveway beside the house in the visibly dimming light, Jamie and Mary struggle with the locked doors, already wild in their efforts. If they don't make that small bastion of safety before full dark the murderer behind them will rule the night. But as the women pry with increasingly frantic effort Eric glances once at the unusually short vehicle and immediately gives up on it. Its chassis resting on the ground, it's going nowhere on four punctured tires.

He turns to the only other place of potential safety as the sobbing women yank at the locked doors, then to the hill, finally to Nell. "Something's wrong."

The lack of a bloody body is actually not a surprise to either Agent, but the lack of deadly pursuit is. His pronouncement has an effect, though not the one he'd hoped for as Mary whirls on him. "YEAH SOMETHING'S WRONG STUPID WE'RE GONNA DIE!"

"Where is he?"

Even had his sand blinded the armed man, they were only seconds ahead of him. He should have come bursting out of the foliage by now.

Jamie turns on him. "Don't you know the killer never runs after his victims, he pops out and kills them!"

"We're All Gonna DIE!" Mary screams.

Giving up on the pair, he turns to Nell. It's getting dimmer by the minute. In too short a time they'll have only a moon between pitch blackness and a murderer with a sword. "Road or house?"

"We're miles from that town. The house. It's defensible and we may find a weapon."

They hurry for the front and the women, perceiving themselves left behind, run after them.

"Are You CRAZY?" Jamie screams when she catches up to them at the front door. There's a one foot wide diamond shaped window at eye level. "They Always Go Into The Deserted House!"

"What Next?" Mary cries. "The CELLAR?"

Eric rams his bare elbow into the window, pulling back before he risks being cut while Nell turns on the panicked pair. "You're welcome to it. My vote is the second floor, preferably a hallway where he can't swing that sword and any weapon I can find." Eric has the door unlocked and opened. "You coming?"

She's not entirely surprised when they shove her aside and nearly climb over Eric in the doorway.

x

The large inner room is dimmer than outside and nearly as bare as the agents had expected, the only piece of furniture an old couch that the Salvation Army would never accept. Nell runs for the far end and Eric for the near and they yank the couch from the wall. "Back!" she cries.

"Max friction," Eric agrees and they shove the heavy piece over, happy to find it's a convertible. The greater weight will block the door better.

Nell looks up to where the two bikinied women cling to each other, staring at the front door. "Don't just Stand there! Help!"

"HELP!" Mary shrieks, which sets Jamie off. "HELP!"

Rolling his eyes at Nell, Eric sets himself and together they shove the massive couch along the floor and ram its end against the door.

No matter how strong their assailant is, he won't have enough leverage to push it free and the broken glass lined hole is too high and small. Eric had cleared only enough glass to ease his arm through, and the noise behind him hadn't helped his caution.

x

Nothing more had been abandoned in the room beyond a wide bristle broom standing in the far right corner. Most of the bristles are gone but as Nell goes to it she finds that, while it's balance is bad for a weapon the pole, longer than she is tall, twists into the head.

Eric has distracted the crying women - thank God for ten seconds of silence - and she twists the pole. It doesn't budge. Probably inserted before she was born. "Eric."

He turns and sees the problem, crosses to her. More than half the light is gone. He puts his feet on the head close to the pole, she steps on the outer ends and they grasp the pole. "3 - 2 – 1!" They twist and the seal breaks with a snap.

They return to the clinging women and are about to make them move toward the stairs - wherever they are - to a more defensible position when glass shatters in the back of the house and both women shriek, their cries deafening as they cling to one another so tightly they can barely be distinguished.

Brandishing the pole, Nell grates "Will you STOP acting like Girls?"

They turn to her and Mary cries "We Are girls!"

"Well, you don't have to Act like it!"

x

She can spare no time, they must confront the man in the mask who steps through and halts at the door, probably savoring his four helpless victims. She's sparred in many lessons with Hetty in learning the Bo staff and, while not confident going against a murderer armed with a sword, she's not left defenseless - if the inch thick stick lasts more than a few seconds.

Eric moves to the man's left, closer to the women where he can defend them empty handed – a really bad idea – and Nell, with her staff, takes right, a more threatening target. To face her, he'll have to turn and maybe put his back to Eric and the others.

The masked man raises his sword and she sees he has no training, for the blade is high and back over his head, point slightly forward and, watching his upper body rather than the blade, she knows he'll slash downward and to her right.

She backs away at the last moment, avoids the rapid point and brings the pole across in a rightward cut level with and onto his head, catching him with a hard blow that nearly breaks the staff.

x

She realizes, as he staggers and shakes out the impact, that to hit with true power will probably break the broom handle. Bo is normally done with a Rattan staff, and a longer, thicker one but she has the advantage of having been short for her entire life.

One of the first lessons in the Bo that Hetty had taught her is do not fight with power as Sam Hanna, fight as Nell Jones, using the advantages her petite body affords her, a lesson no better learned than on the day she'd defeated Sam.

Backing away, she tries to impress him, for if she can impress maybe she can cut the chances of this escalating. 'Yeah, right, this is as escalated as it's going to get.' She starts a Number One spin, twirling it rapidly by the middle before her, brings it up to her maximum speed where the whistling staff resembles a propeller seen in changing spots but invisible on the whole. In the dimming light it looks even more impressive.

He does hesitate, then charges.

She leaps left, further to his right and smacks the staff against his head and he staggers to - no, past - the girls.

"NOW!" she yells to Eric and the girls take it as their signal. The man staggered past and, with paired shrieks, they rush to and cling to Eric instead of each other and their arms and bodies pin his arms to his sides.

Nell isn't quite sure _what_ she yelled as the man rights himself and turns on the trio. The girls cling more tightly despite Eric's very vocal struggles and Nell leaps, lands between them and the masked man.

From his body language she expects a thrust but he brings the sword up and she must raise the pole to block the downward swing. The sword isn't slowed as it slices the raised broomstick in half.

x

The most piercing double shriek almost deafens her and she's sure her best friend won't hear her until Monday.

Left with two nearly thirty inch sticks she hits his head with the right stick, then the left, right, left, right, left as fast as she can move, picturing each blow knocking his head from his shoulders and across the room. She keeps hitting and some time in that furious onslaught the man dropped the sword but she doesn't stop while he's on his feet.

It doesn't take long. Sometime after the thirtieth crack he goes down as though his bones had been replaced by bricks.

She drops the sticks which hit with a clatter. When she looks up Eric stands before her, respect and pride shining in his eyes.

She looks past him. Mary and Jamie no longer cling to one another, but she's disappointed to see how utterly dumbfounded they are.


	4. Help

Chapter Four  
Help!

The unmasking of the swordsman after Jamie ran out saying she needed her phone produced no surprise but a great deal of noise when John LeFauche lay revealed. Mary's berserk rage, however, changed over to a different sort of outrage when, in the decreasing light, Eric and Nell began to remove the man's pants, jacket and shirt.

Nell isn't interested in explaining the perfectly obvious as they remove the clothes and truss him up in them.

"We're stuck up here! I can't get a signal!" Jamie, having returned from the campsite, cries before they're done. She's even more crazed to see her erstwhile boyfriend. Had he murdered Peter to have both women or would Eric also have found his fate in the point of that sword and all three of them worst off? Theories and accusations, rage and grief are all equally loud and Nell and Eric, focused upon rescue, have largely stopped listening.

"Why Not?" Mary cries.

"Because I Can't Get A Signal!" Jamie screams in the glow of her phone, this loud enough to break through the agents' determination not to hear. Both long for the cooler and more experienced heads of their fellows.

Jamie throws the cell phone to the wooden floor, cracking the screen and extinguishing that source of light. " _Damn_ _It_!"

Eric exchanges a look with Nell. The knots are as secure as they need to be and they've seen more than enough of LeFauche. He walks out, announcing "Don't worry, we have a radio."

"You have a _Radio_?" Jamie cries as he's gone. "AND YOU DIDN'T CALL FOR **HELP**?"

Nell follows her partner out the door. "What I wouldn't give even for Deeks right now."

xx

"Where's your radio?" Jaime asks as the women approach the van, leaving the trussed prisoner on the living room floor. It'd getting so dim it's hard to see details of the van. She goes past them to the rear window of the van and looks inside at the sparse leftovers - all their supplies are still on the beach.

"Right up there." Eric, having paused by the driver door, points to the dashboard. Mary runs to a spot beside him and sees that he's pointing to the installed unit - which is very much not a CB.

"That's the Car Radio!"

"That's what I said." Having relieved LeFauche of his pants, he'd done the same with the van keys, unlocks the door and steps to the right before the next door. "Nell, would you do the honors?" he asks with extra gallantness.

"I'd be happy to," she replies in the same vein.

Hands under the edge of the roof, he braces himself and shoves upward. Nell, given two inches, opens the door. The interior light comes on, cutting through the dark as he lowers the van.

"What now?" Mary demands. "That's still a radio!"

"Yes," he says, enjoying her mystification. "Watch and learn." He lays down upon the seat and reaches under the device.

x

"Where'd you learn to fight like that?" Mary asks.

"I have a place where I work out, and a fantastic teacher." Now that things are no longer panicked Mary and Jamie seem more like themselves, but things are no longer normal for either of them. "I'm sorry about Peter."

At the mention, thoughts forced away by life-or-death terror break through and in moments the women turn to one another, hug and the tears flow.

Thinking of Kensi, and Heddy, and everything she'd gone through just a week ago, Nell looks up to the dark sky at the pinpoints of the stars and only wants to know 'When will I learn?'

"Nell?"

'Thank you. At least I always have' "Eric?" She turns. He has the key in the ignition and turns it. The engine roars to life and all the lights on the dash come to life, restoring the illusion of daytime safety, at least over a very few feet.

"Got your cell phone?"

She can't help it. She looks to her bare hip, this is less than the destroyed Slave Leia outfit, to him, to the bikini, giggles and needs time to stop.

x

But recalling the cell phone on the house floor, she hurries to retrieve it. In the living room, she can hardly see anything but Eric, anticipating, turns on the van's headlights. Though facing in the wrong direction, out over the edge of the cliff, they reduce the darkness enough for her to find the unit. Other than a spiderweb cracked screen, it seems intact.

She brings it back out and when he sees her he turns the headlights off.

"Whatdidyoudothatfor?" Mary demands. "We can't see."

"Battery," is the only answer he'll give, his 'if you can't figure that out' diplomatically left unsaid.

"Eric, I have the phone," Nell says by way of reminder of what matters.

"Put it on speaker."

Jamie snatches it from her hand as he lays again before the radio and reaches under it. She turns it on and finally manages to set it, but the only sound it emits is static.

/...- - -..., ...- - -..., ...- - -.../

The call will have to run for quite some time, they'll probably each have to take a turn or two to avoid cramped hands, but eventually the static interference, carried for miles on the radio waves, will annoy enough people for someone to report it.

.

 _Fin._


End file.
